London Calling

My treat for my 27th birthday was a trip to London. This was 6-7 months before the 2012 Olympics so it was frosty! Not as cold as the -32 celcius I experienced in Canada but still a chilly 5 degrees. Compare that to a 15 degree winter's day here in Sydney! We arrived the afternoon before my birthday via the Eurostar from Paris. It was such a pleasant trip, Paul and I shared our train carriage with only one other passenger and the meal we got was really nice!

Beautiful French Countryside

This delicious meal on the Eurostar was finished off with a macaron au chocolat and earl grey flavoured chocolate.
The wine was surprisingly good too!

We stayed at the H10 hotel in Waterloo, a convenient 5 min walk to Waterloo station for easy access to the rest of London.

The hotel was very new and clean but also very tiny!

View from the hotel room window

Beautiful sunset to finish our first day in London

An opera singer busking in Covent Garden

I began my evening with a delicious treat from Patisserie Valerie.
Yes I only wanted it cause it was pink. 

So, onto my birthday treats! The biggest thing was lunch at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire.... but that will be elaborated on another time. My experience there deserves a post on its own! After Fat Duck we had just enough time to take the train back to London to watch Les Miserables at the Queen's Theatre. It was FANTASTIC! I recommend it to anyone! The next day Paul took me to afternoon tea at the Ritz. A superb 27th birthday.

My favourite sandwich was second from the left with Scottish salmon. Mmmm.

We didn't make any music requests but my highlight was when the Russian pianist broke out
in a slow jazzy version of Outkast's "Hey Ya"

The interior of Palm Court in the Ritz was simply exquisite!

The pianist in the court started to play "happy birthday" and brought out this cake
then everybody stared and clapped.